Leon Noble

Profile

Summary

I am a third-year PhD student at the Sustainability Research Institute (University of Leeds), funded by the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership.

I started in Philosophy, moved into Public Health, and now do Sustainable Food System research. Studying Philosophy and Public Health exposed me early on to complex social and ethical realities, requiring me to engage with various hypothetical and real-world challenges, synthesise and critique arguments and systems. I now approach the complex challenge of investigating the impacts of food system transformation where questions of equity, sustainability, and transformation converge.

Motivation

For my Master’s dissertation, I explored UK consumer perceptions of cultivated meat. While I found that providing positive information could slightly improve attitudes, most people remained unaware of the ethical, environmental, and health potential of alternative proteins.

Before starting my PhD, I spent three years working as a research assistant on complex health intervention studies. It gave me hands-on experience across the research cycle — from research design to data collection to analysis and reporting — and sharpened my interest in complex social science research.

Having enjoyed integrating social and ecological perspectives during my Master’s research, I was keen to return to research alternative proteins and expand our knowledge of their potential benefits. With the support of the Good Food Institute Europe, I am evaluating the biodiversity impacts of meat, dairy and eggs and alternative proteins — and how a transition to greater consumption of alternative proteins can reduce global species extinction risk.

Research interests

Alternative proteins (APs) - plant-based, cultivated, and fermented food products - represent a promising alternative to the environmental pressures and inefficiencies of conventional animal agriculture. However, most research so far has been focused on the technical development of alternative proteins or life cycle assessments of specific products leaving the social, cultural, economic, and environmental transformations resulting from a wide-scale shift to Alternative Proteins understudied.

Qualifications

• BA Philosophy
• MSc Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health

Research groups and institutes

• Sustainability Research Institute
• Sustainable Food Systems